I JOINED THE JESUITS AT AGE 17, and I have joked that entering the Jesuits in 1957 at that young age was close to ignorantia simplex — as they would say in Latin — total, utter, complete innocence and ignorance about life. How much do you know when you’re 17, especially back then? On the other hand, sometimes I think I was genetically programmed to become a Jesuit because I had a Jesuit uncle and also a cousin. I went to a Jesuit high school, St. Ignatius High School in Chicago, and I felt the Jesuits there were terrific guys doing wonderful work. There was an excitement about being a part of that — a pull.

About halfway through the long course of Jesuit studies, I was assigned to teach at St. Xavier High School in Cincinnati. That’s normal in Jesuit training; superiors want to know if the young Jesuit can succeed in and be happy doing full-time apostolic work. We weren’t asked in those years, “Which school would you like to go to?” We were just told, because we were supposed to be ready to go anywhere in the world to serve the Lord.

I was at Xavier for three wonderful years, teaching Latin and Greek, and in my first year there we were state runner-up in the basketball tournament, losing by just one point. That was when my passion for basketball started. I was never that athletic personally. Coaches would spot me in my freshman year in high school when I was tall and skinny, and they’d say, “Maybe.” Then they’d see me in action and say, “Maybe not!” But at Xavier I realized the emotional power of competitive sports.

In fact, I knew I was hooked when, back in Jesuit studies once again, I found myself on Friday nights straining to pick up a Cincinnati radio station so I could learn the high school scores.

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